Lost in thought
by Avid Ender
Summary: When Taylor was trapped in the locker, she attracted more than just a shard. It wasn't part of destinies plan, but her stowaways cared little for such petty things as destiny. They needed an administrator.


Disclaimer: Worm is owned by Wildbow, and the Series referenced are owned by a bunch of people all over the place.

Criticism appreciated.

* * *

What do I have? The question every castaway must ask himself when he realizes his new position in life. If they know what resources they have at hand, then they can attempt to utilize them to the best of their ability.

What do I have? Let's see.

Item one, ripped t-shirt.

Item two, worn pair of denim jeans.

Item three, black ink pen, front left pocket.

Item four, white cotton sock, two of.

Item five, plain pair of dum-de-dum, you know whatevers.

Item six, degenerated Nike sneaker, right foot only.

Item seven, prescription glasses, currently attached to face.

Item eight.

Endless wasteland that I have mysteriously appeared in. Seems to be composed of smooth grey rock of unknown composition. Flat as a board, and polished to an almost mirror like sheen.

Item nine.

Lighter grey sky perched above said endless wasteland. Lacks clouds, birds, aircraft, flight capable parahumans, the moon, and the sun.

But it isn't dark, despite a lack of a light source.

Distinct absence of item ten.

Item ten being my shadow, of course.

Lifted right foot up to see if it was hiding there. Didn't work. Still gone.

Perhaps it wandered off.

So to recap. I have the clothing I was wearing before I was shoved into the locker, minus one shoe. I have no idea where I am. I am distressingly calm for someone who has been trapped in a locker for the better part of an hour with inhuman filth. And said place where I have no idea where I am does not make sense in many ways.

Also, there's this, itch? Yeah, Itch in the back of my head. Not on my head mind you, but in the back of my head, like how you know where a splitting headache is. I feel like something's missing, like I should be talking of ordering or doing something with something else. Perhaps whatever it is, just isn't here?

Or I could just be crazy, that seems fairly likely at the moment.

I was shoved into a locker of unspeakable grime. My former best friend and her two aggressive cronies locked me in. Everyone outside of the locker laughed at my situation and did nothing to help. Then they all sauntered off to class when the bell rang.

Again, I am a lot chiller about this then I think I should be.

So, Bugs and gross stuff were all over me, everyone in the school laughed at my misery, I screamed and beat at the door with ever fading strength…

Yeah, I think I snapped.

So.

Is this what it's like to be crazy?

I'm not feeling any emotion beyond mild curiosity, so maybe I'm a sociopath now?

That seems kind of right.

Or maybe I've locked myself in my mind and I've somehow distanced myself from most of my emotions?

If this is my mindscape, it's rather dull. You'd think there'd be more going on, or something.

Wait. Maybe I need to will things into existence, like in that movie. Okay, lets' give it a go.

 _'I summon thee,'_ I thought in my most official sounding tone, _'small chocolate bar of the Hershey inclination!'_

And absolutely nothing happened.

Maybe I need to say it out loud? Let's give that a go.

"Chocolate!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "Appear!"

Again, nothing happened.

"Dark Chocolate?

Nothing.

"Milk Chocolate."

…

"White, chocolate?"

At the failed materialization of even that, I slumped dejectedly. Then I paused.

Wait, what's the difference between thinking and speaking if I'm in some kind of mental scape?

…

 _'One potato.'_

"Two potato."

' _Three potato._ '

"Four potato."

…

Whatever, not like I need to puzzle out the peculiarities of the human psyche.

Or would it just be my psyche? Don't know if everyone else's head is like this.

Wait, forgot that I'm not caring about that.

Anyway, where were we?

I?

Where was I?

Why'd I say we?

Alright, focus, focus. Grey wasteland, grey sky, you're currently insane.

I think I can work with this.

I seem to have two options.

Option number one. I sit down and wait for something to happen.

Option number two. I walk off in a random direction and see if I can find anything.

The second seems more appealing. Who knows, maybe this is just my mind's roof, or something. Perhaps there's a stairway access to another level. Won't know until I try.

"But first…"

I reached down and removed my lone shoe.

No point wandering about with one leg longer than the other. 

* * *

__

_Elsewhere, a man and a woman stood in a meadow of yellow flowers. The woman suddenly froze, and lifted her gaze from where it had rested on the ground and refocused it on an unseen point in the distance._

 _"I lost her."_

 _The man beside her immediately tensed, his face morphing from calm to utter shock._

 _"Please tell me I just misheard you." He asked quietly._

 _"I enunciated quite clearly. I. Lost. Her."_

 _"How the hell did you lose her?"_

 _"Her personality matrix and consciousness was here at the moment the shard made contact. Something happened when we piggybacked in, and both components recessed." The woman explained._

 _"Did the shard bond successfully?" Her companion questioned, worry apparent in his tone._

 _"Yes."_

 _The man clasped his hands behind his back, and began to mutter under his breathe. After a moment he stopped, and returned his gaze to the woman besides him. She hadn't moved since her sudden announcement, and her voice had yet to vary in its pitch or tone._

 _"Then what went wrong?" He asked._

 _"I believe we did."_

 _"I thought you said she'd be able to survive contact with the Puzzle Box!" He voiced, flinging his arms in a feat of exasperation._

 _"Physically? Yes. Willpower wise? Yes. Mentally? That was going to be the tricky variable." The woman slowly explained._

 _"So we've what? Hijacked her?"_

 _"More like temporarily displaced her."_

 _"So she'll come back then?" The man calmed, a hint of hope entering his expression._

 _"No."_

 _He flinched backwards, as if physically struck._

 _"But you said…"_

 _"She has the ability to make her way back. She does not know how too though."_

 _"I, don't get what you mean." He replied._

 _"She has the potential to fly a space shuttle. She has never received instruction."_

 _"Oh, that's bad."_

 _"And the space shuttle that she doesn't know how to fly is in space, venting atmosphere, and the only thing currently keeping the puzzle box contained. If she doesn't reassert the administrative control of the facility we gave her, it collapses layer by layer and the core will be released."_

…

 _"That's bad, I take it?" He hazarded._

 _"Apocalyptic." She deadpanned_

 _"So no pressure then?"_

 _"No, no pressure whatsoever."_

 _"What's the plan then?" He asked._

 _"You, are going to find her. I, am going to manage the body so that it does not get injured. We do not know what state the new administrator was in when we arrived, only that she was perfectly suited to the task at hand, and in great pain."_

 _"You understand the mind better though, why are you sending me after her?"_

 _"Multiple reasons."_

 _"They had better be good ones."_

 _"They are. First, you can multiply yourself, cover more distance and area. Second, If I went after the new administrator I wouldn't be on standby if any of the containment systems began going off line."_

 _"I could fix those myself if I had to, you've had me do it on occasion."_

 _"Too risky. The situation has the potential to go critical. The difference in keeping everything running is going to be between someone who 'knows' the systems, and the person who built the damn things."_

…

 _"No offense."_

…

 _"You can leave a few copies for if I have difficulty with the seals."_

 _He acquiesced, nodding reluctantly._

 _"Thank you."_

 _"You are welcome."_

 _"Any other reasons I should be aware of?"_

 _"Yes. The new administrator's body is female."_

…

 _"I figured that it would be awkward if I gave you the controls." She voiced._

 _"Yeah, bullet dodged on that. Anything else I should know? Dead-line to doomsday, maybe?"_

 _"At the least, three days. At the most, a month."_

 _"Bit of a rough estimate?"_

 _"Multiple potentially catastrophic situations."_

 _"So at the best?"_

 _"A month."_

 _"But at the least."_

 _"Three days."_

 _"I'll manage it in two." He stated, clapping a fist into an open palm._

 _"I do not see that happening."_

 _"Why not?"_

 _"The human psyche is enormous."_

 _"How big we talking here?"_

 _"Potentially infinite."_

 _There was a silent pause._

 _"Well that is an encouraging tidbit."_

 _"Only potentially though. Have yet to fully test its extents." She commented._

 _"Should get going then, wish me luck?"_

 _"For all our sakes, yes, good luck."_

 _The man ran off, splitting into multiples in different directions as he did. The woman merely returned her gaze to the ground, and closed her eyes._

* * *

And opened the eyes of a body she had never used before. Sight was the first thing she seized control of, and she was rewarded with a blurred view of a hallway, as seen through the vents in the side of a locker. If she had to hazard a guess, the administrator was a person who required glasses. They must have slipped off their perch when she had thrashed against the door. This, of course, raised the question as to why the administrator was trapped inside a locker.

The woman seized control of the bodies' sense of hearing next. It was quite outside the locker. It was a school of some kind, with classes in session. Inside the locker though, she registered the loud thudding of her new heart, and a soft skittering on the floor.

She seized control of taste, and gagged momentarily. Something had made the administrator sick, and it was an incredibly unpleasant flavor to suddenly realize was in one's mouth. She sputtered for a full minutes, eventually managing to cleanse her palate through spitting.

Then, she seized control of the nose, and rocked violently backwards into the locker. It reeked horrifically of death and decay where she was trapped. An understandable situation for the administrator to have lost their lunch within.

Whoever hated the body she now occupied, had gone out of their way to perform something horrid to it. How long had she been trapped in here? Had no one helped her? This suggested that she was on the wrong end of whatever social hierarchy was in place. Of course, at the moment, being the victim of a bully was rather inconsequential to the utter catastrophe they now had to avoid.

For a brief moment, the woman delayed activating the final sensor suite. Something fetid was in there with her. She took a deep, halting breath, and got on with it.

Bugs crawled on her skin.

Unimaginable filth clung to her.

Something was trying to bite its way into her right foot, perhaps a maggot.

She had experienced worse.

But she understood why the Administrator had screamed.

Even Maelstrom would have screamed in this situation, if only from utter disbelief.

She did not scream though, there were better ways to expend energy.

She stilled as best she could in the deranged confines of the locker, and waited for someone to walk past. She could wrench the door off if she wanted to, but in the administrators body it would be a bad idea. Her form was rather weak, and the effort would break the limbs involved. This was also a location a person did not want to have an open wound in.

Seconds ticked by like hours, minutes, like days, and eventually, soft footsteps could be heard coming from her left, down the hallway.

"Excuse me." She voiced, and then again a little louder, only so as to be heard.

The soft footsteps paused. And then rushed forward, louder with ever stride. A man in worn overalls paced to a halt in front of her impromptu prison, and reeled back momentarily as the smell assaulted his nostrils.

"Miss," He choked out, "Miss, are you alright!"

The woman thought about that question for a long moment.

"No," She concluded, "I am not alright. Not alright at all."

"Just stay still, alright, I'll go get the keys!"

He dashed off, and the woman obeyed him. It wasn't that hard. She hadn't been moving anyway.

A minute later his footfalls were once more audible, as well as those of several others. He fumbled, finding the one he was looking for, and forced the lock to open.

The door sprang outwards, and she slowly tumbled out. Cold linoleum was there to meet her.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" He desperately asked, "Do I need to call an ambulance?"

The woman had landed with her cheek pressed to the ground, limiting her vision to the frantic janitor, and the feet and legs of the students who had been drawn out by the commotion.

'How many of them watched this?' She morbidly pondered. 'How many did nothing?'

"Miss? Miss!" The poor janitor was shouting now. She tried to move her arms, her legs, anything. They would not respond.

"Yes." She eventually voiced. "Best get a doctor."

"I'll call your parents, what's your name? I'll have to look it up in the school directory."

Well, that was a problem now, wasn't it? She didn't know the administrators name. She'd have to use one of hers, but which one?"

"…Miss?"

"Witching Hour."

"…pardon, miss?"

"My name, is Witching Hour."


End file.
